


Smoke

by Destina



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-01
Updated: 2003-12-01
Packaged: 2018-04-03 23:26:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4118574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destina/pseuds/Destina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack decides what he wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for troyswann (Salieri). Written 2003 and posted to LJ then; posted to AO3 in June, 2015.

One's mind has a way of making itself up in the background, and it suddenly becomes clear what one means to do. -- A.C. Benson 

 

For two days, snow had been falling, steadily burying Jack's porch, his deck, his backyard. One inch at a time the last of the green disappeared and gave way to an even blanket of the white stuff. The roads were so bad that Hammond had called, had told Jack to stay home, that he was scrubbing the briefing for the following day. It was a Sunday briefing anyway, so it wasn't a real day off, just a reprieve from yet another seven-day workweek. 

Besides, Daniel wasn't back from PX7-200 yet, and without him, the trip to the mountain would be pointless; it was his research in the little briefing packets. Jack was sure it must be warm on PX7-200. He remembered Daniel telling him about the mountains there, about some river and its tributary streams. It made Jack wish for ponds lit by summer sun, and big fish, swimming endlessly away from his bait. 

Jack turned his overstuffed chair around so it faced the big window in the living room. He propped his bare feet up on the cold pane and sipped a beer, and watched the snow in its hushed descent. Snow was no use without children to play in it. Without that dimension to its personality, snow became a partner-in-crime to heavy icicles and icy roads. And it took forever to melt. 

The wind picked up, swirling the snow around in gusty circles, sideways in front of the window. Jack could feel the blast of cold air seeping though the glass. His toes curled in protest. His thoughts drifted toward work, inevitably, tediously. There were days he obsessed about it, and not in the way he would have five years ago, in the can't-wait-to-get-busy mode. Some crucial appeal of living a half-life of mostly work and little play had disappeared the day Daniel ascended. 

He might have retired, if Daniel hadn't come back. On a bad day--and those were coming more and more often the past few years--it seemed like maybe he'd walked off down the wrong path at some point since Daniel's ascension. The SGC was full of eager, zealous young officers with fresh teams, full of piss and vinegar and all the stuff that had been beaten, bled and wrung out of Jack since he took command of SG-1. 

Sometimes, when they went on missions and sat around on alien planets drinking homemade barley wine, eating stews full of unidentified meat and vegetables and accepting the gratitude of people they'd actually been able to help -- those days, Jack tried to remember that this was the bottom line, this was what it had always been about. It helped that they were all together again, four corners of the oddest square he'd ever seen, but it didn't cure what ailed him.

The missions were coming faster now that Daniel was back to his old self. Almost at the pace of the second year the team had been together, after they'd figured out enough destinations to keep everyone busy and still have some left over. They were always on the move. Never enough time in between to stop and think about it, to wish anything could be different. Jack reminded himself that he had the universe for a workplace, and Daniel was back again. 

And still, it wasn't enough. Not anymore. There were days Jack felt so far from normal, he'd forgotten what normal used to be. 

When the doorbell rang, it startled him. He jumped a little; beer spurted out from the neck of the bottle and splashed across his sweatshirt. He rubbed it into the fabric on his way to the door. 

On the doorstep, a live snowman swayed gently in the wanna-be blizzard. "Got any room at the inn?"

"Daniel? Get in here." Daniel obliged right away, dropping a trail of snow behind him as he went. Jack shut the door and took the laptop bag from under Daniel's arm. "What the hell are you doing out in the storm?"

"I couldn't make it to my apartment, and I was closer to your house than the base." He stomped his feet on the tiled entryway and looked up at Jack through lenses made opaque by fog and snow. 

"You should have stayed at the base."

"No, I..." Daniel broke off, suddenly, and tension vibrated through him. He took his jacket off in silence. Jack raised an eyebrow. "I didn't have a warm coat with me, either. It wasn't supposed to snow when I left."

"Well, yeah. Eleven _days_ ago," Jack said. He took Daniel's jacket and shook melting snow from it. Water droplets sparkled on the black wool as he hung it in the closet. 

Daniel rubbed his hands together, then took off his glasses and polished them on his shirt. "Any chance I can get some coffee?"

"Sure you don't want a beer?" Jack asked, as he headed off toward the kitchen. Daniel trailed him, the soles of his wet shoes squeaking against the kitchen tile.

"No, thanks. But I wouldn't turn down a shot of something stronger."

Up until that moment, Jack had been on track toward convincing himself Daniel was tense because he was cold, but that notion was dissipating pretty quickly. "Grab what you want," he said. "You know where the glasses are."

Daniel retrieved a bottle of bourbon and set it down beside the coffeepot, then pulled down two mugs. "I'll take it with my coffee," he said, by way of explanation. 

Jack looked at the dark circles under Daniel's eyes. "You heard tomorrow's briefing was called off?"

"Yes. If it keeps up like this, no one will be out on the roads," Daniel said. 

"Not unless they're nuts," Jack said. 

"Point taken." 

They stood facing each other, each leaning against their piece of countertop, Daniel's hands braced at the edges of the cold tile, Jack's arms folded casually across his chest. The warm, rich smell of coffee filled the kitchen while Jack watched Daniel, who had gone silent, retreating inward. Jack might have let him get away with that, if he hadn't driven through a blizzard to maroon himself on Jack's doorstep.

Jack asked, "When did you get back? Aren't you ahead of schedule?"

Daniel's gaze was steady. "We had casualties." 

"You okay?" Jack asked quietly. 

"I'm fine." Daniel gave him a brief smile. "Most of the dead were villagers. They were caught in a fire that spread through half the village. Henderson - you know, the archaeologist assigned to SG-14 - was hurt pretty badly. Burned."

"Dead?" Jack asked. 

Daniel sighed. "Yes."

"How did it start?"

"The fire?" Daniel reached past Jack and snagged the coffeepot from its holder, then poured two cups of it. He twisted the top off the bottle of bourbon and dumped in enough to top off the mug. "A spark from a staff weapon blast, I'd imagine." 

"What?" Daniel held the bottle out toward Jack, eyebrows raised. Jack cut a hand toward him. "Forget that. What the hell happened?"

Daniel set the bottle down and picked up his mug. "I guess I should start at the beginning."

"Yes, you should." It always happened this way, when Daniel had been away; a story half-told, an experience relived in fragments. It made Jack nuts, the way Daniel vibrated with the sound of unspoken words, unfinished tales. He wanted to shake the story out of Daniel in one convenient lump.

Daniel reached up to put the bourbon back in the cupboard, and Jack noticed two livid scratches on his neck, half-buried beneath Daniel's collar. "It's a beautiful planet," Daniel said. He leaned forward, resting his forehead on the cabinet door, and set his mug down with a thump; hot coffee splashed over his hand, but he didn't so much as flinch. 

The commanding officer in Jack went briefly to war with the concerned friend, and lost. 

He picked up a kitchen towel and tossed it on the counter beside Daniel's hand. Daniel wiped up the spill, but didn't turn to face him. Jack rested a hand on Daniel's shoulder. "Come sit down." He tapped Daniel's shoulder and waited. After what seemed like a very long time, Daniel picked up the mug of coffee again and followed Jack into the living room. 

Daniel swung the big chair back into position and they settled across from each other. For a moment, it was deja vu, seven years passed and not a moment's difference between then and now, with Daniel by the window and Jack by the lamp, and the fire burning hot in the space between. Jack put his feet up on the coffee table and cradled his warm beer, his coffee cup forgotten on the kitchen counter; Daniel eased back in the chair, too tense. 

"I guess the mission didn't go well," Jack said, less an obvious statement than an educated assessment. 

Daniel's hands closed around the mug. "No." His lips tightened down on the word as he said it. He looked around the room, face suddenly relaxed, a glint of amusement in his eyes. "Jack, it's almost Christmas. Shouldn't there be some decorations? A tree, or some tinsel...colored lights?"

"Didn't manage to get the lights up before it snowed. There's a wreath on the door. It's buried in snow." Jack leaned forward and shoved the assorted junk on the coffee table aside to make room for his bottle. "What happened, Daniel?"

A pause, and then: "They attacked through the Stargate." Daniel lifted his chin. Eyes fixed on Jack's face, he went on. "We were down near the river with some of the women, listening to their versions of old folk tales, legends of the Goa'uld who brought their ancestors there as slaves. We heard the wormhole activate, and then the sounds of staff weapons. There was no time to do anything to prevent it." 

Jack held the silence for a few moments, then asked, "Who was on the gate?"

"Simon and Miller. I'm sure they were cut down in the first few minutes. We found them...after. In the brush cover, about fifty yards from the gate." Daniel shifted in the chair. "Henderson and I ran from the river - Colonel Gracen ordered us to take cover and return fire. The huts were already engulfed. We could see the fire as we ran." His expression had gone bleak, his eyes cast down.

Jack looked down at the same carpet Daniel was examining with such interest. In its fine weave, he could see the patterns emerging - a mind's eye picture of Daniel darting out into the open, toward the screaming villagers, and the Jaffa taking dead aim at the center of Daniel's chest. "But you didn't obey orders, did you," he said, almost as sure of it as he was of his own name. 

"Yes, I did." Jack's head whipped up, and at the sight of Daniel's narrowed eyes, the blood in his veins went cold. "They all died."

"The villagers?"

"The Jaffa." 

Jack's eyebrow rose. But before he could say another word, Daniel had drained his mug and was unlacing his shoes. 

"If you don't mind, I'd really like to grab a hot shower. I'm freezing."

"Help yourself," Jack said, while he automatically replayed the story in his mind. Maybe he had missed something. Jaffa in the village, all dead; a devastating fire. Two threats to the villagers, and Daniel, with scratches and burns...and yet he had followed orders. 

Or so he said.

Daniel stuffed his socks in his shoes and carried them with him toward the bathroom. "Can I...?" he said, gesturing toward Jack's room. 

"Sure. I'll grab 'em for you."

"Thanks."

In the top left-hand drawer of Jack's chest of drawers were two pairs of old grey sweats, big on Jack but snug on Daniel, and two black t-shirts, standard issue, Daniel's size. One set had been there forever, so long that Jack didn't remember the first time he'd folded them all together in the same place. They'd remained there after Daniel ascended. Jack had even washed them once or twice. 

The other set had come out of Daniel's chest of drawers, after...when Jack had closed his apartment and helped pack his things. 

He pulled one set out of the drawer and placed them on top of the dresser. The scene was familiar, the setting, the details; it was all so familiar, so regular, so fucking normal. 

Tears of gratitude stung Jack's eyes. The sensation made him angry. 

He swung around, clothes in hand, and caught sight of himself in the mirror: black hair gone silver, still lean, still muscular, and tired, shuttered eyes. He knew this man, knew all the curves and corners, hidden places, thoughts and dreams. He'd had time to examine them in foxholes, in hellholes, all over the world and back again, and from one end of the universe to the other. In all the spaces between, he'd kept company with his own thoughts, and to shut them away now was ridiculous. Pointless. He knew himself too well.

The clothes dangled from his fingers as he went back to the foyer, to the computer case on the ground, propped carelessly against the wall. He crouched down beside it. Water stood on the leather, evidence of melted snow. With one hand, he wiped it away, then rubbed his hand absently on his jeans. 

The case was light in his grasp, so he set it down on the dining room table and backed away, staring at it. Daniel would come out of the shower, wet hair spiked, blue eyes unfettered by his glasses, smelling of Jack's soap and Jack's shampoo, and say something like, "I should start my report now...get it all down while it's fresh in my memory." Jack would nod, and grab another beer, and maybe stir up some soup and another pot of coffee, and they would talk things over, and he might be able to get to the bottom of whatever it was Daniel wasn't saying, wasn't telling him, hadn't told him. He stared at the case and saw Daniel's hands, the way they hesitated in midair when the right words wouldn't come, and thought of his own speechless tongue, and the loathsome feel of tears in his eyes. 

"Jack?" 

He turned. The room had darkened since he'd been standing there, and not because of the storm. It was evening. Daniel stood in the doorway, swathed in a towel, hair as imagined minutes before, no glasses, just a frown that creased his entire face. Jack looked away. "Sorry," he muttered, and extended the clothes out at arm's length. But not before Daniel's eyes widened as he took them from Jack's hand. Without a word, he disappeared back into the bathroom to dress. 

After that, it went as predicted. Soup, sandwich, beer, coffee, mission report, a nap on the couch. But there was no talking. Daniel didn't speak; Jack didn't ask. He lay on the couch and replayed the word pictures in his mind. Daniel, running; huts, burning; Jaffa, dying. 

Outside, the wind had died down, and the thick swells of snow pressed against the walls and windows of the house, so tight to their berth that Jack could feel their cool, suffocating presence closing in. He closed his eyes and drifted off to the quiet tack-tack of Daniel typing things he still hadn't shared. Not that Jack was much for sharing, either. Maybe Daniel hadn't wanted to share. Maybe he'd wanted Jack to ask. 

When he woke again, it was dark in the house. A fire crackled merrily in the fireplace, warming the top of Jack's head - a fire Jack hadn't built, and hadn't heard Daniel build. He stretched and sat up, and listened for it: tack-tack-tack, at regular intervals. He'd been asleep a while; he could tell because he was groggy instead of refreshed. 

Coffee-smell was faint in the air, but he couldn't tell if it was fresh or stale. "Daniel?" he called, as though they were at opposite ends of the house.

"There's fresh coffee," Daniel said, in a normal speaking voice. Tack-tack-tack. 

Jack heaved himself off the couch. Once standing, he could see the top of Daniel's head in the dining room, ghastly blue from the light of the computer screen. He watched as Daniel leaned into the light of the screen, intense, focused. In the light from the screen, his brown hair shone silver.

When he had coffee in hand, he refilled Daniel's mug to a murmured 'thanks'. As he set it to Daniel's right, he bent to see what Daniel was writing and caught a whiff of dark smoke, a fragment of memory. "You smell like a bonfire."

"It's in my hair," Daniel said quietly. He kept typing. Only one paragraph was visible at the top of the screen. Jack tracked the words as they appeared. _"...67 bodies were recovered before SG-14 departed for Earth. A rough count of casualties indicated 55 were villagers, 12 Jaffa, 1 civilian SGC personnel."_

Jack tilted his head; his chin brushed Daniel's hair, dry now, soft. "How did Henderson die?"

Daniel stopped typing, but his index finger tapped repeatedly on the 'm' key. "He followed me." 

"Care to elaborate?"

"Will you make it an order if I don't?"

"Probably." Jack turned his face again, close to Daniel's hair, and straightened. He backed away from the chair.

Daniel's hand went to the back of his neck, then to the side, soothing the angry welts there. "Gracen ordered us to return fire. Two Jaffa were dragging off a girl...she was ten, twelve at most. I emptied both clips at them. Killed one." 

"And the other?"

"He was big," Daniel said. The screen of the computer went dark. He closed the lid. "Best chance was to tackle him, so I did."

"What the hell were you thinking?"

"She was ten, Jack." Abruptly, Daniel pushed back from the table and turned to look at him. "There's nothing else to say." 

"Don't give me that."

"Tell me you wouldn't have done it."

Jack opened his mouth, but Daniel already knew it was true, so he closed it again. His jaw clenched. "Henderson came to help you?"

"No. After I broke cover, he went to help the people trapped in their huts. Part of a burning roof fell on him." 

"You saw this?"

"Heard it." Daniel shivered; Jack twitched in response. "He was screaming," Daniel added, as though the picture hadn't come clear enough already. 

Once again, silence fell between them. "You hurt?" Jack said roughly, though he knew the answer already. It was written in Daniel's posture, Daniel's eyes, the marks on his body, the chill on his skin. 

"I'll heal."

"Christ," Jack said. A shiver of near-miss anxiety went through him. "Who the hell ever taught you to take on a Jaffa in hand-to-hand? You didn't learn that in my unit."

"No." Daniel got up and went into the kitchen. Or at least, he started into the kitchen; he stopped in front of Jack. Without looking at him, he said, "My days of being a bystander are over." 

When he had moved past Jack, the heat left by his body radiated through Jack like a stain. 

He heard Daniel rinsing out his mug, running more water, and the clink of glass as he busied himself doing the few dishes in the sink. Familiar. Sounds he'd heard a thousand times in a comfortable setting, his home, where there were closed doors and warm beds and sealed windows, to look out of, but not into. He stepped backwards, and back again, and then into the hallway.

By the time he reached his bedroom, Jack was shaking. The heater chose that moment to kick on, sending a gust of burnt-toast air washing down over him, as if to carry away the crazy not-thoughts he was having, the ones presenting themselves like predictions of warmth and comfort and truth. He had no business going near the truth. Not tonight. 

Daniel didn't come to the door. Not that Jack had expected him to. He only wondered why he'd hoped he would. 

He closed the door on the rest of the conversation - the one they'd started, but hadn't really gotten around to - and crawled into bed. Not like Daniel was going anywhere. 

Face down into the pillow, almost asleep, it belatedly occurred to Jack that the spare room was the coldest in the house. 

 

***

Every so often, Jack had the dream where he was nearly blind, where he was crawling through the mud on his belly toward a distant stargate. In that dream, Daniel was always walking a pace ahead of him, shouting at him to hurry up, but he could only see Daniel's feet; they were bare and muddy. 

The dream spit him out into the wee morning hours, gasping and sweating, and he shook it off the way he did all the various nocturnal reminders of his past, on the rare nights when they haunted him: he splashed water on his face and took a piss. No chance of going back to sleep. 

In the living room, the fire had dwindled to embers, popping and cracking every so often in its death throes. Daniel faced the big window, looking through the caked-on frost as though he could see the drifts and mounds developing in Jack's backyard. His voice was soft, but it filled the room. "I don't want to do this dance anymore." 

"And...which dance would that be?" Jack said, just in case he'd lost his mind and he was still locked in Ba'al's Happy Torture Palace, complete with long-held fantasies turned to delusions and sarcophagus dreams. He stopped just short of the coffee table, a respectable distance, wanting to move closer but not sure he should. Not yet. 

Daniel was quiet. And after a time, he said, "Ascension changed me, you know."

Jack moved closer, so close he could feel the heat from Daniel's body; his body craved the warmth. He could smell wood-smoke in Daniel's hair again. "I know."

"At first I thought I'd find Sha're. But when that path was closed, it was always something else. I thought it would be helping people, ascended. And then I thought I'd come to some clarity about all this, that I couldn't...I would have to be a soldier, too."

Jack leaned into him, then, pressing his chest against Daniel's back. "You're not a soldier."

"Yes, I am." Daniel's weight shifted then, carefully; Jack had to move in order to brace him, and he placed his palms on the glass, arms on either side of Daniel. "Not the same way you are. But I'm not full of ideals anymore, Jack. I don't want to talk things to death. Things have changed." 

Jack bent his head, brushed his lips across the bare nape of Daniel's neck, and felt Daniel's shiver all through his own body. "You could have made it to your apartment tonight," Jack said. 

Daniel nodded, then let his head fall back against Jack's shoulder. "There's nothing for me there," he said, and Jack thought of books and furniture and photographs, memories like artifacts, collecting dust. 

Jack pulled his hands away from the glass and wrapped his arms around Daniel, not the first time, but it had never been like this before, holding a strength that had come to him for binding. He turned his head and pressed his lips to Daniel's skin, a gentle kiss, just below Daniel's ear. Daniel sighed. "Jack." 

He fought the urge to be rough. His fingers hooked the edges of Daniel's glasses and pulled them free, and then Daniel turned in his arms, and Daniel was doing all the work. Daniel's mouth on his, Daniel's face somehow between Jack's hands, cool skin warmed by the heat of Jack's desire. 

For the first time, Jack hesitated, but Daniel had thought it through for both of them. When their lips touched again, Daniel's lips were parted, seeking his breath, drawing him in. Jack buried his hand in Daniel's hair and tipped his head back. 

Daniel didn't waste time; he pushed Jack's t-shirt up, got his hands on Jack's skin and they were turning, until Jack's back was pressed against the cold glass, and Daniel kissed him, kissed him in ways Jack could barely remember being kissed, in ways that made his dick ache and the breath catch in his throat. 

When Daniel let him breathe, Jack said, "I don't remember dancing with you that first year. Or...technically...this last one, either." 

"We danced," Daniel said, as his words brought him close and his lips brushed over Jack's, slowly, the touch of his kiss sensual enough to provoke a moan. "I led." His eyes shone in the half-light. "You stepped on my feet." 

The taste of Daniel's skin was like melting snow, the taste of spring come almost too late, but just in time. Jack thought it might be enough to bring them closer to normal, whatever that was. He'd almost forgotten how it could be in the thaw.


End file.
